Heartspell: Horizon Academy

A cute dating sim built around a pretty good match 3 game. I'm only at 35% completion for the game at 26hrs, minus an hour or two where I left the game idle, so there's plenty of content! There's a lot of other good things to say about the game like the characters, the voice acting, the art, the world-building, the matching and spell system, and more! It's all really solid stuff! If you want a cozy fantasy game, definitely pick this up. You also have the option to date all the characters at once so you don't have to replay anything. Characters will even talk about your other relationships and date others, so it doesn't feel like you're cheating on anyone. If you wanna just date one person or none at all, that's an option, too.

If you enjoy dating sims you its for you, if you played Date Everything personally I think you will enjoy the game. The main story of the game is a good length (around 20 something hours) its kind of long but not to long and the voice acting is really nice making the game not feel drawn out, the match 3 element is also a nice break in the story if you need it. The community around the game are also very sweet people. Overall characters you can thirst over with nice voices what more do you need. On a final note Miko best girl.

In general, I've been pleasantly surprised by how nice this game has been to play. The music is well composed, though it could use a bit more variety, because after a while, the same three soundtracks kinda blend into one another. The character designs are interesting, and many of the characters themselves are genuine fun and a breath of fresh air to interact with. ...Which brings me to the downside. While [i]most[/i] of the cast are a great time to hang out with, there's a handful of ♥♥♥♥ heels that I could just as happily do without, but due to how the plot works, this is yet another game that falls into the exhausting pattern that so many others of this type do, which goes, "see this useless prick who sucks the joy out of the room simply by existing? Interact with them, because they're hot and I say so, and it doesn't matter if you like them or not!" I know bringing real life experiences into a game setting is an oddball move, but given that this is ostensibly a story about attending school, can I just be blunt about this? I managed to get through my school years just fine without ever having to force myself to interact with the biggest wastes of skin and bone on campus. Why, then, do so many games force me to have to interact with these piles of dead weight, and also slog through their emotionally draining personalities all the time? "Being hot" does not forgive someone feeling like a chore to be around, and Morgan (plainly just unpleasant to spend any amount of time with for any reason), Amara (full of herself and looks down her nose on everyone), Dawn (pointlessly aggressive at all times, tried to force her ex-girlfriend to make sweeping changes to a long-established system right on the spot and threw a hissy fit when it didn't happen, now spends her time harassing and antagonizing that ex and anybody associated with her like a petulant little twit) and Typhon ("FIGHT ME BRO! FIGHT ME! COME ON, FIGHT ME, BRO!" Get. A. Personality.) all feel like I'm going needlessly far out of my way to curry favor with people who, in real life, I would never even give a second glance to. It would've been nice if the plot of the game could have been resolved with, "the friends [i]you chose to make[/i] help you save the day," rather than, "the friends [i]the plot forced you to make[/i] helped you save the day." But, well, that's enough griping out of me. Like I said, apart from that one snag, and the aforementioned lack of soundtrack variety, the game has otherwise been an absolute treat, and I'm fully prepared to play it again to do some of the character story paths differently, now that I know how they resolve in the end. In summary: + Lovely music / - Could use some more variety + Fun cast / - Some of them could fall off a cliff for what they're worth + Interesting story / - Shame it forces me to interact with morons

I got really hooked when I initially only wanted to try it out for a bit. Story is nice, and the match-3 gameplay is differentiated by each NPC having a different effect.

Love this game, love how many options there are for each romance! Some of the puzzles were difficult, especially Amara's path, but none of them were too difficult. I had to play around with some things to get it working properly on Linux as a warning to other Linux gamers. I hope this developer keeps making dating sims because I want more!

This game is just perfect. Seriously. The gameplay is actually good, and you can make it optional if you can't handle it. (Amara is INSANE). The characters are fun, the plot is actually interesting, with twists, and all in all? I spent 12 hours marathoning this game plus and regret nothing. This is a 5/5, and I wish I could buy it for everyone.

I ran into this game by pure luck, when I was looking for something easy to play to rest my tired brain with. I’m only on 11% story completion, but I love all the characters so much!! They are all unique and quirky! And they are fully voiced, and the voice acting is brilliant!! The story is interesting, and the game leaves me with a such a wholesome feeling 🥰

I am absolutely loving this game. I enjoy the different relationship routes, but the story is also really good.

Very interesting to me, and I'm glad I played it in short. Had a blast. Will be upfront: it's an inclusive game, queer oriented- which I actually like and don't mind. Representation doesn't feel forced, and I don't feel like a terrible person like in Huniepop. There's 11 main characters with a few side ones, very open ended experience, and all characters interweave in the main story which is tied up wonderfully, imo. I will add as well that like other reviews have said, the game is open ended as far as match games go - you have the tutorial character, you can choose your gender, and you can interact with whoever you want in whatever order. For the most part- also meaning you can romance the same sex/non-binary people. I suppose if that's an issue the game allows the flexibility to some people, but I prefer this kind of story telling personally. Difficulty is subjective for the most part, but in being thorough and choosing who to interact with will alter who is easier/more difficult. I did the normal difficulty and enjoyed myself, despite being interested in these kinds of games. [spoiler] By far, Amara is the most difficult - you can only score 4+ matches and more, followed by Ember, so I recommend doing them later, but can be done earlier if wanted. Reasonably. [/spoiler] There are a few interesting spell combos, though once I had all of them I figured out my style and I didn't lose again about 3/4ths in- so playing again I might do the higher difficulty, and I recommend that for most normal is enough, especially first time players, though that's a plus as well that there are options here as well. Nice to unwind with. This is definitely a romance game as well, so I'll summarise that next. There's nothing visually explicit, but you can choose between different options whether to have flings, romantic options, or explicit relationships. At the end they show a photo and it's supposed to be memorabilia I think. Pretty standard, nothing explicit, and showcases the character- pretty much covered or in lingerie. Interestingly, maybe only to me anyways, this is also a magic game in a college setting, so I actually liked almost all the characters. Playtime to doing almost everything, minus a few bonus after post-scenes and all the matching sequences, took about 15-16 hours, which I imagine could fluctuate a few hours give or take- especially if every optional dialogue is done. Feels very replay-able based on who focus on or synergise with. As an aside, the tutorial character kinda warns you at first about romancing more than one person, but I found there's no real consequence to dating/romancing multiple people and [spoiler] there's actually a threesome I found in one of the quest-lines. I leave it to you to profile me who I did that with [/spoiler] But the mere fact they allow that sort of thing really appeals to me and adds a lot of depth. Anyways, I like the game but I can definitely see for some people mileage may vary, though imo this was very enjoyable and would definitely recommend to a lot of people. Last thing: I played this on the steam deck, and the game's definitely designed for a mouse and keyboard - the layout really only used the trackpad and mouse click buttons. Despite that, felt fluid - so from what I can tell using custom controllers without trackpads won't work here, and it's best portably played I found.

A lovely little gem of a game, that I might have never known about if I hadn't clicked on a random old YT video. (Thanks Crispy's Tavern) Played a run 90 % Story. Checked out the girls' romances (sans Amara) and befriended everyone else. Ended up utterly smitten with Miko <3. I know being able to date everyone is a big selling point of the game, but why do so if the perfect girl literally jumps right into your arms. <3 Currently doing a Wizard run to check out the Match 3 stuff more. Will stay true to my moth girlfriend forever and transmute all the chaos gems I find. :)